


Cursed

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 02:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2905313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like Jabberwocky said; monsters are made, not born.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cursed

**Author's Note:**

> This is obviously AU but what I imagine could have happened to make Jabber the way she is.

It starts as most stories do; in a small, isolated village deep in the mountains of Wonderland (not the Wonderland part but rather the isolated village part). The people in this particular village kept themselves closed off from most of society, preferring to be alone and worship their goddess.

The goddess was unnamed but to the villagers this didn’t matter. She didn’t need a name for they all knew who she was in their hearts. They worshiped and lived in relative harmony until one little girl spoiled it all.

Her mother, who was heavily pregnant at the time, brought an offering to the alter. It was the weekly offering that she insisted on bringing herself. It was her turn and she was going to prove her devotion. All was going fine until she tripped on the uneven ground. When she fell, there was this sharp pain in her stomach that sent fear through her whole body.

The woman tried to get up but failed so she called for help until one of the priestesses inside the temple ran out.

“Please, help me!” she begged. “I think my baby is coming.”

There was an old superstition that a woman pregnant couldn’t enter the temple and the reasons were unknown. However, if she gave birth in the cold she and her baby would not survive.

Eventually, the priestess called for help and brought her inside. Several hours later, she was birthing her child in the temple for the simple fact that she could not move because of her current state.

“Atarah…” She breathed out as her daughter came into the world. The candles flickered in the temple but she paid them no mind. The entire woman’s focus was on the baby in her arms.

Suddenly, the door slammed open. “What is going on here?” demanded an authoritative voice.

One of the priestesses walked towards the head priestess that had just come in the door with her head bowed. “Madame, she was hurt! If we didn’t bring her inside, both she and the child would’ve perished!”

The old woman slammed her cane down on the ground in a show of her anger. “No pregnant woman is allowed to step foot on these scared grounds. That child will be cursed.”

No one knew why this superstition was in place but once the head priestess labeled Atarah cursed, that was it for her and her place in the village had been decided.

In the beginning, Atarah was shielded from the hate by her mother. It worked for a few years but at age six, she discovered how cruel people could be when she was watching some of the other children in the village play. 

The kids had been kicking around a ball when one of them tripped and fell. Everyone ran to the boy (including Atarah who leaned especially close). “You’re scared the foot is broken and you want your mother. She is dead so father must come but he will not. You will be stuck here with a broken foot. Alone.”

When the boy started screaming, they shoved Atarah to the ground. “I only said what I heard!” Atarah sobbed.

This behavior continued over the years. Atarah had the gift of picking out someone’s worst fears and no matter how hard she tried, she could not turn it off. In a desperate attempt to help her, Atarah’s mother returned to the very place of her birth, the temple.

“As I told you, the child is cursed,” the head priestess said. “Any infant in such a holy place that calls the powers of a god or goddess can be at risk to the very beings we worship.”

“Why is it forming in this way?” her mother whispered in distraught.

“The goddess never did care for children but I can’t say why your child was cursed with this particular type of magic. Magic is a power and evil thing. It is why we have the rules we do.”

“What should we do?”

“The only thing we can do is lock her up.”

Therefore, Atarah was locked away at the young age of ten in her home. It was a comfortable room but still a prison—no matter what her mother tried to say.

When Atarah was sixteen, she manifested a new power. It enabled her to phase in and out of places. The said power was discovered by accident when Atarah was looking longingly out the window one night. Of course, after finding out about it she had to use it.

The one thing Atarah was not was subtle. In time, her mother did discover her new power one day. Atarah had phased back into her room to find her mother sitting on her bed, an angry look on her face.

“What were you doing out there, Atarah?”

She swallowed. “I just wanted some air, Mama. It gets so lonely out there.”

“How?” she asked, her mother’s voice cracking.

“It’s something new I learned,” Atarah muttered weakly.

The slap came out of nowhere.

“You are to stay in here, Atarah! Didn’t you understand what the head priestess said?”

Atarah listened to her mother and for two years she never stepped foot outside the room until on her eighteenth birthday, she could take it no more. When her family was asleep, she phased out of the room and stayed out for hours. There were going to be problems when she arrived home and Atarah was proved right at the sight of her mother standing in the middle of her prison.

She shouting and moved to strike her. Atarah was able to dodge the hit by phasing behind her mother, a hand wrapping around her throat.

“You’ve all been jabbering at me my entire life to do this and do that. I’ve been nothing but a dutiful daughter, always staying hidden because of the disgusting monster I know I am but no more,” Atarah whispered. “You’ve always worried about this haven’t you, mother? The fear that I might strike out and end your life—well I can say I’m happy to oblige.”

The abuse over the years had taken its toll. Atarah cried as she choked her mother but did not stop until there was no life left in her. One by one, her family members lost their life to her hands before Atarah fled the village in the night.

She would return to the village years later but with a new name, The Jabberwocky.


End file.
